I go to my recitation at 12:30 on Wednesday, a normal day, a normal class, at a normal time except I keep looking across the street at the building where you are. This day, this time, and this class used to be my favorite one, because, after, I would go stand at the building and wait five minutes for you to walk out with a warm smile plastered on your face and pull me into a hug. We’d walk back to yours with our silly conversations that were mostly me talking and you playing Pokemon Go. We’d get home, and I’d tell you I’m hungry knowing you have nothing in the fridge, but it was always my hint that I wanted to DoorDash. We’d lay in bed and giggle at TikToks together, and you’d pop my fingers while I tried to con my way into a foot rub. But today, though I am in the class I love, I don’t get to walk across the street, I don’t get to text you through the entire class asking if we are walking home together, and I don’t get to go “home.”
A day where I am questioning if I am even allowed to text you is so out of the norm that I am struggling to remember what my days looked like before you. I’d do anything to remember that right now, because now I can’t even go to you to figure it out. The first day was about being hurt, and I wasn’t even thinking about how the days after would go. But, somehow, the days after are worse, because the day to day life is different now. We didn’t even text often on the day to day, but now that I can’t see you after our long days, it’s all I wish we would do.
Before you, I went to the gym and hung out with my friends every day. I would wake up early and go to bed late studying or just doing my silly cosmetic routines. I called my family to tell them about my days and told them how much I missed being home. I was okay with being alone and actually preferred it most days. Before you, I was a woman who promised herself to never rely on another person or to make another person the most important thing in my life. I relied on routine and consistency, and I learned long ago that those two little things were who I was. Being consistent every day, having the same routine and every day feeling the same sounds like hell to some, but to me it’s better than what I am now. When a day feels predictable nothing can hurt or throw me off my game. That’s who I was, someone that loved my simple life, because it was what made my life big — until you. You taught me that it was okay for a day to be different and that trying something new didn’t have to be scary. That going on a hike could be fun with the right people, that trying boxing and not being a pro after one lesson wasn’t embarrassing, and that putting my trust in someone else to plan our day didn’t mean the day would be awful. You taught me that I can still be me without my routines — which then became my routine.
Now I have a new routine: learning what it’s like to not text you every detail of my day, or to fall asleep next to you every night. Sitting with the uncomfortable feeling of not knowing what comes next has become its own kind of practice. This doesn’t mean a new routine won’t come, but, for now, I am learning what it’s like without ours. Every day is different, which you taught me is okay. I don’t want to be the woman that didn’t let others in, but I want to have her ability to be content with having her own routine. I want to be the woman you helped me become, who is learning to roll with the punches just like in boxing. And, lastly, I want to be someone new. I want to be able to sit with this uncomfortable feeling and know that is enough, and that is okay. I am not there yet, but, for now, I take it day by day knowing that is my new routine, my new normal. So, instead of walking across the street to you, I walk in the other direction — to eat, to study, to go to the gym, to myself.